It's a little hard to put into simple words what I'm going through here at IFS. It's not like boot camp, or field training, but the sheer amount of information that your brain has to process and memorize, on top of preparing and flying flights, just leaves your brain feeling scrambled at the end of the week. Is the flying hard? No, not really. If you want to get technical, there's a few differences between flying a Cessna 172 (which is what I got my private license in) and a Diamond DA-20 (which is what we fly here), but it's more about learning the procedures they use here and what they expect you to have memorized. Like checklists, radio calls, and emergency procedures. Oh, and most of it has to be verbatim. It's a challenge, but having the three day weekend to catch up certainly helped. And only having a four day work week after should help even more.
Anyways, I'm 5 flights in out of about 27. Still above average, according to my instructor pilot's comments, which is pretty good because half of my flight is on the Commander's Awareness Program, which means they're below average and need some help. So I spent some time helping out as much as I could this weekend. Hopefully everyone can make it through these next 5.5 weeks.
For this week, it's just more regular flights for me to practice what they've taught us last week. All of which is preparation for our first check ride, which is basically a midterm exam, but with flying. Fun stuff...but not really.
Above: Practicing our pre-flight checklists, so we don't suck at doing them
Friday after we were done flying, they held a little get-together in the student lounge.
